


you kind of make me want to shut your mouth

by severine



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alcohol, Alternate Universe - College/University, Banter, Confessions, M/M, New Year's Kiss, because how else does one write kurotsuki, no drunk/dubcon shit though i'm not about that, rating might go up in the second chapter, tsukki's a frosh kuroo's a junior
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-25
Updated: 2017-11-25
Packaged: 2019-02-06 14:32:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12819600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/severine/pseuds/severine
Summary: Sure, Tsukishima doesn’t know a single person here. Sure, he’s effectively drinking alone, and sure, that’s totallynotpathetic, andsure,he’s at a grody house party in the campus equivalent of the elephant graveyard fromThe Lion King.But it's whatever.





	you kind of make me want to shut your mouth

**Author's Note:**

> Kurotsuki is my otp, let it be known. This was originally intended to be a part of a full length fic that I'd (sort of) planned out, but we all know I can't commit to that. So here ya go.
> 
> Work title is from [this wild ride of a song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1H60VfN5rB4). Enjoy!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Well,” Kuroo says, shrugging. He turns away, eyes narrowing at something in the backyard. He’s leaning forward, forearms on the railing, hands crossed at the wrists where they dangle over the edge. “For starters, you can’t go to sleep before midnight.”
> 
> The corner of Tsukishima’s mouth twitches. “It’s not like the year only changes if you’re awake for it.”
> 
> Kuroo looks at him again. He opens his mouth like he wants to say something, then decides against it. Tsukishima wants to ask. He doesn’t.

_It’s gonna be fun,_ Yamaguchi said.

It’s bullshit, is what it is.

The party’s in this complex of sandwiched-together pseudo-houses situated by the edge of campus, the ones they rent out to groups of five or six upperclassmen. Like a reward for managing to find that many people willing to live with you, except Tsukishima doesn't know what part of the place can really qualify as a  _reward._ Colloquially, he's heard it called _the ghetto._ Sometimes with the epithet _where freshmen go to die,_ sometimes not. Either way, as a person who is _a.)_ a freshman, and _b.)_ not particularly looking to die, Tsukishima can’t say the place sounds appealing to him. At all.

And yet.

That’s precisely where he finds himself on the evening of December thirty-first, Yamaguchi’s hand hot and sweaty around his wrist as he lets himself be dragged through the downstairs. The number of people inside has got to be against some sort of fire code regulations. When he says so, Yamaguchi asks him if he _tries_ to suck as much fun out of things as he possibly can, or if it just comes naturally to him. Honestly, he isn't sure.

Eventually they reach a kitchen, and Yamaguchi releases him. It’s no less crowded, albeit a bit quieter. One of Tsukishima’s shoes is already full of something lukewarm and wet. He decides, officially, that he hates it here.

“I’m gonna get a drink,” Yamaguchi announces, loud and close. “D’you want anything?”

Tsukishima shrugs. Yamaguchi just grabs his wrist again, this time pulling him to the counter at the side of the room. He isn’t sure where Yamaguchi’s familiarity with the place came from. He doesn’t question it.

There’s an assortment of cheap booze set out beside a stack of red plastic cups. A note taped to the counter’s grimy laminate says (the pen bleeding slightly where something had been spilled on it),  _non booze_ _is in the fridge._ There’s a dick drawn in the corner. Poorly, Tsukishima might add.

Yamaguchi wastes no time hunting down a bottle of orange juice among the assortment of  _non booze_ in the fridge, pouring it over a moderately irresponsible amount of vodka in a cup. Tsukishima, for lack of any better ideas, does the same.

“There ya go, Tsukki,” Yamaguchi says, grinning. “Hey, I’m gonna go find Yachi, ‘kay? You’ll be fine, right?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Tsukishima asks, glancing around. Sure, he doesn’t know a single person here. Sure, he’s effectively drinking alone, and sure, that’s totally _not_ pathetic, and _sure,_ he’s at a grody house party in the campus equivalent of the elephant graveyard from _The Lion King_.

But it’s whatever.

“Great! Have fun! Hey, you could probably find someone here. Maybe you’ll get a New Year’s kiss.”

“Stop projecting your wishes on me,” Tsukishima says. “Go get yours.”

Yamaguchi laughs. “Hopefully,” he says. “Anyway, text if you need me, okay?”

Tsukishima shrugs.

Then, he’s alone.

As alone as he can be, that is, in a kitchen teeming with people in various states of intoxication, social discomfort, and - a guy runs in from the front room, shirtless, piggyback-carrying a girl who _definitely_ isn’t dressed for the weather - undress, apparently.

He wanders. It’s all he really _can_ do. He manages to claim a precarious seat on an arm of one of the beat-up couches in the main room, right beside a _very_ suspicious stain, and he resigns himself to people-watching.

It’s interesting for awhile. He watches a trashed but otherwise attractive guy take a generous body shot off of a big wild-haired jock type sprawled across a ratty armchair, and he makes a bet against himself as to whether it’ll be followed by a _no homo_ or a sloppy makeout. The latter wins.

He sips his drink. He'd made it on the weak side. It’s not going to be enough to get him drunk, or even tipsy, really, but he figures that’s probably for the best.

What he knows will get him _hammered,_ however, is any sort of drinking game, because he’s pretty sure he’d completely blow at any and all of them. Namely because he’s never played one in all his uneventful nineteen years of life, but even if someone were to take pity and teach him, he’s pretty sure he'd still hate it. So when everyone in the room suddenly starts receding to accommodate the huge table that’s being pulled out from Lord only knows where, he’d be lying if he said he isn’t panicking a little, and when he spots Yamaguchi waiting earnestly at the front of the crowd across the room, he’ll fully admit that he’s panicking _a lot._

It’s not because Yamaguchi can’t fend for himself. Tsukishima has full confidence in him. It’s more so because he’ll undoubtedly try to rope Tsukishima into what appears to be a massive beer pong tournament. Someone’s taken out one of those cheap children’s art easels with the big pads of paper, and people are lining up to be written into an elaborate competition bracket. It’s all entirely too much.

He gets up from the couch before the people hiding him from view have a chance to move away, and he manages to slip unobtrusively into the kitchen. There are a few lingerers who seem to have had the same idea. He returns the tight-lipped smile of a girl he vaguely recognizes from his math lecture, then makes his way to the counter to top off his drink. A little more vodka, a little bit of off-brand Sprite, because the orange juice had apparently been a hot commodity. The result is something half-carbonated and overly sweet. He drinks it anyway.

Eventually he finds himself needing the bathroom (and getting agonizingly bored of standing in the kitchen idly scrolling through his phone), but there’s an issue in that the only bathroom here, to his knowledge, is on the other side of the raging doom pit in the next room, and there’s no _way_ he’s going to risk that.

What he _can_ get to from the kitchen, however, is the narrow hallway leading to the house’s staircase. He wonders briefly if it’d be intrusive to go upstairs. The stairs are dark, which is a pretty clear sign of dissuasion, but etiquette definitely isn’t his priority at the moment, so he calls it an executive decision. And it’s the _right_ executive decision, because he finds a bathroom - right at the top of the stairs, light on, door open.

When he’s finished, he hesitates in the hallway, drink in hand. There’s a loud, collective scream from what he assumes is the ongoing pong tournament. It’s really beyond him how people get so much enjoyment out of it.

Tsukishima glances around, stalling. To his left, there’s a hall with a few doors, presumably bedrooms. To his right, though, there’s a shorter one, with only a single door at the end. There’s a small, narrow window, and the exit sign mounted above it glows like a beacon. As if that wasn’t enough indication, black capital lettering declares _outdoor access._

This is, again, a moment where he knows he’s probably pushing the boundaries of politeness. It’s also, again, a moment where he doesn’t particularly care. His curiosity - and desperate desire to avoid the party at all costs - gets the best of him, and he approaches the door, squinting through the window. It looks like some sort of balcony or fire escape, but it’s a decent size; there are two cheap lawn chairs occupying most of the space, and a short footstool with a grimy ashtray sitting in the middle. A few cups are scattered on the ground, and there’s a rickety staircase going down in the corner.

Slowly, he pushes the door open. On the floor outside there’s a rock painted a hideous hot pink color, which he presumes is meant to be used as a doorstop. He props the door open behind him, because as shitty as this party is, getting locked out sounds marginally shittier. The air is chilly - it’s December, so he doesn’t know what else he should have expected.

Almost January, he reminds himself. He checks his phone. It’s eleven-twelve, he’d missed eleven-eleven by a minute. If he believed in making wishes, he might be upset by that.

He walks over to the edge of the platform, where there’s a railing that’s wide enough for him to set his drink down. He’s about halfway done, and he has very little desire to finish it. If he looks down, he can see the house’s backyard. There’s a poorly-constructed firepit with a few chairs set out around it, the same kind as the two beside him. Snow dusts everything very lightly; there’s hardly been enough to stick since the winter started.

Tsukishima enjoys the solitude for a while, but eventually the chill starts permeating his thin sweater, and he can feel the tips of his fingers getting cold as well. He decides he’ll go back inside in a few minutes.

Then again, sometimes things don’t go exactly as decided.

“Tsukki,” says a sudden voice from somewhere behind him, and before it really registers as a thought, it’s a feeling - something in his gut, almost. A fight-or-flight response, and the only “flight” presently available is either down the stairs or over the railing.

When he turns around, he figures either may have been preferable.

Of _course_ he’d known who to expect. The voice certainly wasn’t Yamaguchi’s, and there’s only one other person who - whether he likes it or not - calls him that. So the fact that he comes face-to-face with Kuroo Tetsurou, philosophy classmate and shitlord extraordinaire, is not what surprises him. What gets him is how… see, Tsukishima _wants_ to say “how different he looks.” He wants to say that Kuroo’s appearance is at all distinguishable from normal, that he’s wearing some particular outfit or he’s made an effort to style his hair or _anything_ to blame for the fact that Tsukishima sure as hell _feels_ like there’s something he’s seeing for the first time.

But Kuroo looks the same. He looks exactly the same as he always does. So Tsukishima can blame it on the context, maybe - it’s a party. People do different things at parties than in philosophy class. Ideally, anyway. So maybe it’s the fact that Kuroo is holding a drink rather than one of his stupid green pens. The fact that he’s looking at Tsukishima like you look at a guy at a party, and that’s _definitely_ different than the way you look at a guy in a classroom.

There’s a dull crunching sound from somewhere near Tsukishima’s hand. He loosens his grip on his cup.

“Didn’t expect to see you here,” Kuroo says, seemingly oblivious to Tsukishima’s millisecond existential crisis.

Tsukishima just stares.

“Almost wish I hadn’t.” Kuroo joins him by the railing and leans against it on one elbow, facing Tsukishima. “You look like you want to die. No offense.”

“I do now,” Tsukishima says, his grasp on words finally returning to him. _“No offense.”_

“You’d have to try exceptionally hard to offend me, Tsukki.”

“Don’t underestimate me.”

Something flickers in Kuroo’s eyes, like he’s been given a challenge. A smile pulls at one corner of his mouth. Tsukishima wants to hate it.

“I would never,” Kuroo says.

“For the record,” Tsukishima adds, because he feels it’s necessary, “I didn’t expect to see you here, either.”

Kuroo looks unduly surprised. “Why not?”

“It’s a big campus,” Tsukishima says, shrugging. “And if there’s anyone I’m thinking of when I consider going out, it certainly isn’t you.”

“Ooh, I really shouldn’t underestimate you,” Kuroo says, with an exaggerated pout and a hand on his heart. “Though you _are_ sort of stupid, aren’t you?”

“Excuse me?”

“Who’d you come here with, Tsukki?” Kuroo sets his cup down on the railing. Tsukishima watches his hand.

“My friend,” he says, eyes darting back to Kuroo’s face.

“Named?”

He frowns. “Why do you care?”

“Just answer,” Kuroo presses, and there’s something annoying in how amused he looks, as if there’s something he knows that Tsukishima doesn’t.

“Yamaguchi Tadashi,” Tsukishima says, somewhat hesitantly.

“Huh,” Kuroo muses. “Don’t know him.”

“Why should you?”

“I live here,” Kuroo says, and Tsukishima’s pretty sure he feels his heart skip. “You really didn’t know that?”

 _"What,”_ Tsukishima says, because he can’t think of anything else that’s appropriate.

“Yup,” Kuroo says, grinning like that’s exactly the reaction he’d been hoping for. “Me and four other guys. Bet your friend knows one of them.”

“Four?” Tsukishima echoes.

“May as well be five, I guess. Don’t think Bo’s boyfriend has gone back to his apartment in, like, two weeks.”

“Two weeks?” He says. “I already hate it here, and it hasn’t even been two hours.”

“Guess that’s why Bokuto’s dating him and not you, then.”

Tsukishima almost doesn’t notice. He almost doesn’t notice the stuttered tap of Kuroo’s fingers on the wooden railing, the twitch in his jaw that belies the apprehension behind his cool, even stare.

_Almost._

He’s pretty sure - and by _pretty sure,_ he means about sixty percent, because he doesn’t want to be presumptuous - that Kuroo is trying to find out if he’s single. To Kuroo’s credit, it’s a smart move. Unfortunately, Tsukishima is very well-versed in smart moves.

“Guess so,” he finally says, leaving Kuroo to interpret that as he will.

Kuroo doesn’t answer. Not verbally, anyway. His eyes just stay level with Tsukishima’s, lingering on the side of his face as he turns away, and Tsukishima feels conspicuously transparent, like Kuroo will pick up on anything he allows into his conscious.

He wonders, fleetingly, whether that’d be such a bad thing.

“Four roommates,” he says, breaking both the conspicuous silence and his own risky train of thought. “I can’t even stand having one.”

Kuroo just looks at him for a moment, like he’s shocked that Tsukishima’s negativity is directed toward anyone but him. That he voluntarily decided to prolong the conversation.

Then, Kuroo laughs, short and appreciative.

“Could’ve guessed.”

Tsukishima wants to say _what’s that supposed to mean,_ but he knows exactly what that’s supposed to mean, and part of him doesn’t really want to hear Kuroo say it.

“Hey,” Kuroo continues, pushing the thought from Tsukishima’s mind. “What time is it?”

Tsukishima clicks his phone screen on. “Eleven twenty-one.”

“The night is young,” Kuroo remarks, with a deep, contented sigh.

“Is it?” Tsukishima asks. He isn’t looking at Kuroo and hasn’t really been for most of the conversation, but he can feel Kuroo’s eyes flicker to the side of his face.

“Sure it is,” he says. “Especially on New Year’s.”

Tsukishima turns to him, then, and there’s something almost anticipatory in his expression. Tsukishima frowns.

“Why’s that?”

“Well,” Kuroo says, shrugging. He turns away, eyes narrowing at something in the backyard. He’s leaning forward, forearms on the railing, hands crossed at the wrists where they dangle over the edge. “For starters, you can’t go to sleep before midnight.”

The corner of Tsukishima’s mouth twitches. “It’s not like the year only changes if you’re awake for it.”

Kuroo looks at him again. He opens his mouth like he wants to say something, then decides against it. Tsukishima wants to ask. He doesn’t.

“Guess you’re right,” Kuroo eventually says. “It’s still fun, though.”

“If you insist.”

Tsukishima stares over the railing, down at the yard. A pink plastic flamingo wears a scarf and a droopy Santa hat.

He turns to Kuroo.

“Why are you here, anyway?”

Kuroo sighs theatrically. “Tsukki, we’ve been over this.”

“Yes, I get it. You live here. You know that’s not what I mean.”

“You mean, why am I standing out in the cold instead of inside my own house having a good time at my own party?”

“Precisely that.”

 _“Precisely that,”_ Kuroo says, mocking him. Tsukishima rolls his eyes. “Well, if I’m ruining your solitude, you can tell me. I won’t take it personally.”

“Wouldn’t care if you did,” Tsukishima says.

“So mean,” Kuroo says. Passively, without much conviction, like he’s commenting on the weather. He takes a sip of his drink, setting it back down on the railing.

“You weren’t downstairs,” Tsukishima remarks.

“Tsukki, you noticed,” Kuroo says, voice dripping with artificial sweetness. He meets Tsukishima’s glare with a grin. Tsukishima hates how easily it disarms him. “You’re right, though,” Kuroo continues. “Wanted to get some chem work out of the way first. I’d be down there now if you hadn’t distracted me.”

“Then by all means, go,” Tsukishima says neutrally. He doesn’t mean it. He doesn’t mean it at all. He’s fixating on the particular way Kuroo said _distracted,_ like it wasn’t a bad thing.

“If I wanted to, I would’ve,” Kuroo says, and if Tsukishima hadn’t looked, he wouldn’t have noticed the simple smile on Kuroo’s face, maybe wouldn’t have even picked up on the _slightest_ softening of his voice that accompanied it.

Tsukishima feels a sudden, almost panicked need to change the direction of the conversation. He feels stupid thinking it, but it’s like Kuroo is being… _too_ nice to him, somehow. It feels unnatural. But it’s not even that he dislikes it.

Maybe he hates how much he _doesn’t_ dislike it.

“Do you normally drink while you’re doing chemistry homework?” He asks, glancing at Kuroo’s beer and forcing out just enough detachment to come across like he hadn’t noticed anything.

Kuroo falters, just for a second, and a vague confusion flits across his face; he’s startlingly quick to slip into a natural, vaguely sheepish smile.

“Only occasionally,” he says. “What, you don’t?”

Tsukishima shrugs. “I don’t take chemistry.”

“Fine,” Kuroo says. “Calculus.”

“Then no, I don’t drink while I’m doing calculus homework.”

“Good,” Kuroo says, and when Tsukishima looks up to question him, there’s a wide grin on his face. “You’re way too young to drink.”

“You’re full of shit,” Tsukishima says. “How old are you, anyway?”

“Nice try. I’m twenty-one.” Pointedly, he raises his beer and takes a drink, watching Tsukishima over the top of the cup. “What’re you?” He shoots back, setting it back down on the railing. “Eighteen? Nineteen?”

“Nineteen,” Tsukishima says flatly. He looks down at his own cup, then back up at Kuroo as he picks it up. “Stop me.”

“Oh, I won’t,” Kuroo says. “But when the cops get here and book you, you’ll be sorry.”

“So will you,” Tsukishima says, shrugging. He sips the drink; it had gotten to a solid room temperature inside, but it’s cold again after sitting out on the railing for so long. “It’s your party.”

 _“Technically,_ it’s Mattsun and Makki’s,” Kuroo counters, pointing a finger at Tsukishima. Neither of those names means a thing to him. “But you’re right. You got me. Your delinquent ways live to see another day.”

“Tell me with a straight face that you were a perfect angel when you were nineteen,” Tsukishima says.

“Tsukki, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I haven’t got a straight anything.”

Tsukishima, aside from the slight upward quirk of an eyebrow, manages to keep anything resembling a reaction from his face. This is an accomplishment that he’s very proud of.

“Okay,” he says evenly. “Tell me with your annoying gay face that you were a perfect angel when you were nineteen.”

(Of course, what he’d _wanted_ to say was that he and Kuroo evidently had very, very different definitions of _disappointing,_ but this would have to do.)

Kuroo laughs, though; his genuine laugh, that abrasive cackle that Tsukishima tries so hard to hate. He fails. Miserably.

“That was good,” he says, and Tsukishima isn’t surprised to see the laugh settle into a comfortable grin, but he is caught off guard when it fades into something distinctly heavier. “My freshman year sucked, actually,” he continues. “I was a huge dumbass - I know, I’m still a huge dumbass, you don’t need to say it - but I mean a _colossal_ dumbass. Hung out with the wrong people. Did some shitty stuff. But now, though?” He looks at Tsukishima, and when the smile returns to his face, it’s like the righting of an imbalance in the universe. “I’m a saint. Not a dirty sinner like you.”

“Sure you are,” Tsukishima says.

Kuroo doesn’t say anything back. For a few comfortable moments, neither of them does.

Tsukishima has been stubbornly ignoring the chill in the air, but a particularly cold breeze sends a conspicuous shiver through his back and shoulders.

“Cold?” Kuroo asks. Tsukishima knew he would, and he’s not sure how he feels about that.

“Evidently.”

“You should go inside,” Kuroo says, and there’s a slight frown on his face - maybe affront at Tsukishima’s tone, maybe something else. Maybe something a little closer to concern.

Tsukishima shrugs. Shudders at another ill-timed windchill.

“Fine,” Kuroo says. “Then at least let me give you a jacket or something.”

Tsukishima hesitates. _I don’t need one_ hangs automatically on the end of his tongue like a voicemail message.

But he’s freezing, and he’s only getting colder, and the inside of the house is suffocating, and he knows approximately two and a half people there, and he’s just been offered an article of Kuroo’s clothing, and _God_ does he hate that the thought crosses his mind.

Not as much as he hates the way he feels about it.

“Okay,” Tsukishima finally says, and Kuroo freezes.

“...Well,” he says, smiling like that'd been easier than he expected.  _"Okay,_ then." He turns, taking a step toward the door, then pauses. He looks back expectantly, and Tsukishima realizes he’s supposed to go with him.

Tsukishima sighs. He grabs the drink that Kuroo had left on the railing, handing it to him.

“Here,” he says. “Wouldn’t want someone stealing your shitty beer.”

Kuroo grins, taking it. “You’re a lifesaver, Tsukki.”

“So I’m told.”

Kuroo seems to find that funnier than it really is, letting out a genuine laugh as he turns to open the door. Maybe he’s had a few drinks. Maybe he just has a shitty sense of humor. Then again, Tsukishima knows that one’s more than a _maybe._

He follows Kuroo inside. Downstairs a chorus of voices mixes with the loud music, both growing distant as Kuroo leads him to the opposite end of a hallway. He stops at a closed door - they’re all closed - and pauses with one hand on the doorknob.

He raises the other, knocking loudly. “Bo, if you’re in there, put your dick away.”

Tsukishima blinks, taking a half-step backwards.

“Roommate,” Kuroo explains. When there’s no answer after a few seconds, he pushes the door open.

There’s no one inside, but the lamp at one of the desks is turned on, illuminating a spread of notes and the glossy pages of an open textbook. Tsukishima glances around in the dim lighting; the room isn’t necessarily _clean,_ but it’s not quite messy either. There are two beds, two desks, two dressers - he didn’t know what exactly he expected from the upperclassman ghetto, but it’s not all that different from a regular dorm room, and something about that is inexplicably comforting.

Kuroo steps further into the room, setting his cup down on the cover of a closed notebook sitting at the corner of the desk. That one must be his, then - Tsukishima glances over the bright lamp, the familiar green pen abandoned on top of a half-filled sheet of paper. He wonders what’s written on it. He wonders why he’s wondering.

“Make yourself at home,” Kuroo says, shooting him a quick glance before turning to open the closet door. It’s sort of a strange thing to say, Tsukishima thinks - it’s not like he’s planning on staying in Kuroo’s room very long.

Would he be opposed? Maybe not.

He wanders over to the desk, shamelessly prying now that Kuroo had - technically - given him permission. The book is organic chemistry, from what he can tell, and the grid-paper notebook beside it is cramped with neat, careful molecular diagrams. Kuroo’s narrow handwriting subtitles each one with a different but equally incomprehensible name.

“Fun, right?”

Kuroo’s voice is startlingly close, and when Tsukishima looks up, he’s standing there with a hoodie draped over his arm and a look of vague amusement on his face.

“I think we have different definitions of fun,” Tsukishima says.

"Whatever you say, Calculus,” Kuroo shoots back.

Glancing across the desk, Tsukishima notices something else - sitting in front of the lamp is one of those paper flip calendars, with the pages people always forget to rip off every day. Kuroo’s, to his credit, is actually on the correct date, but that’s not what catches his attention.

“Do you really have an inspirational quotes calendar?” He asks, picking it up and reading the last piece of paper stuck to it.

Kuroo scoffs. _“Philosophical_ quotes, thank you very much.”

“As if that goddamn class isn’t enough,” Tsukishima says, ignoring whatever protest Kuroo intends to meet that with as he continues to read from the paper. “December thirty-first: _Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end._ Seneca.” He looks up at Kuroo, one eyebrow raised. “Is that their way of telling you to buy a new calendar?”

Kuroo laughs. “Maybe.”

“Hm.” Tsukishima sets the calendar down. It looks a little pathetic, with its singular scrap of paper, but when he turns around -

“...You’re kidding me.”

Kuroo had left the closet door open, and taped up inside the door are neatly arranged rows of torn-off quotes from the calendar, a ridiculous number of them.

“You _keep_ all of them?”

“No,” Kuroo says matter-of-factly. “Only my favorites.”

“Let’s see,” Tsukishima says, taking a few steps toward the closet. “So there are three hundred and sixty-five days in a year.”

“Shit, are there really?” Kuroo interjects. Tsukishima talks pointedly over him.

“You kept…” His eyes skim over the grid of papers. Nineteen down, eleven across, save for three missing from the bottom row. “Two hundred and six. Just about three-fifths of them.”

Kuroo blinks. “Huh,” he says. “I… guess so?”

“That’s a pretty broad definition of _favorites,”_ Tsukishima says, skimming over a few of the papers. _The only certainty is that nothing is certain,_ Pliny the Elder supplies. All things considered, Tsukishima has to agree.

“Stop using your annoying math to bully me,” Kuroo says defensively. “It is perfectly acceptable to have two hundred and six favorites.”

“Pick one out,” Tsukishima says.

Kuroo narrows his eyes. “You’re kidding.”

“I don’t mean find your _favorite favorite_ or anything,” he clarifies, “because I don’t feel like standing here for twenty years. Just pick any of them, and say why you kept it.”

Tsukishima isn’t entirely sure what compelled him to give Kuroo the task, but a grin spreads across his face, that crooked little _challenge-accepted_ one that means he’s about to find the most obnoxious way to do whatever you’ve asked him. It’s a very specific look, and Tsukishima is suddenly conscious of how easily he’d identified it.

He wonders when he’d started doing that.

Kuroo seems to be taking said task very seriously - scrolling over the rows and rows of quotes, squatting down to inspect the lower ones, occasionally returning to one he’d already looked at. His face is now nothing but concentration, almost comically intense.

“You’re totally pressuring me,” he says, addressing Tsukishima without looking up. “Watching me like that.”

“Sorry,” Tsukishima says, glancing away.

“I don’t mind.”

He wants to ask why Kuroo bothered bringing it up, then, but he’s interrupted.

“Tsukki, I got one!” Kuroo stands, brandishing a calendar page from somewhere near the bottom of the door. There’s an innocent sort of excitement in his voice, but the grin on his face is unnervingly dark; like a child witnessing a perfectly executed prank.

Tsukishima sighs. “Let me see.”

He takes it, smoothing out the wrinkles where Kuroo had slightly crumpled it.

 _If you want to be a good saddler, saddle the worst horse; for if you can tame one, you can tame all,_ it says. Socrates. It’s from November twenty-fifth.

Tsukishima looks up at Kuroo, one eyebrow raised. The stupid smile hasn’t left his face.

“It’s good, right?”

“Sorta sounds like an innuendo.”

Kuroo's eyes narrow, like he'd been personally insulted. “Socrates would _never.”_

“Fine,” Tsukishima says. “Why’d you pick it, then?”

“Hm.” Kuroo frowns, plucking the paper from Tsukishima’s hand. At first, he just examines it, and Tsukishima wonders what the hell he could possibly need to think of when he’d just spent so long picking it out.

“Well,” he eventually says, “I just think it’s a good outlook, I guess. You go for the one thing you’re not sure if you can get,” he continues slowly, as if he’s selecting his words very deliberately. “If you succeed, then - well, great for you. It feels a lot better to succeed at something hard than something easy, doesn’t it?”

“Yes,” Tsukishima says.

“But if you fail, then… well, it feels better to fail at something hard than something easy, too, you know? It’s like - if you fuck up something easy, you’re going to feel stupid. But if you fuck up something you didn’t think you had a chance at, it’s a lot less tough to come to terms with.” He looks up from the paper, shrugging loosely as his eyes settle on Tsukishima’s. “So regardless of what happens, what’s the appeal in going after something easy?”

He smiles, and there’s something impossibly transfixing about it; at once pointedly sharp and disarmingly soft, and Tsukishima doesn’t get it. He could sit there for hours and pick apart every detail. The pure expectancy hiding behind the acute, almost suggestive squint of his eyes. The confident pull of his lips, just slightly tentative.

And then, _God,_ Tsukishima thinks. _I’m looking at his smile like he’s the goddamn Mona Lisa._

And then, _I’m fucked, aren’t I._

And then, a part of him that’s just the slightest bit more rational, _Yeah. You are._

"Yeah,” Tsukishima says. “Guess that makes sense.”

“Your validation means the world to me, Tsukki,” Kuroo says, that _fucking smile_ melting into something more like his usual smirk. “But it totally does sound like an innuendo, doesn’t it? Dirty mind you’ve got there.”

“You’re one to talk,” Tsukishima says.

Kuroo laughs. “You got me,” he admits. He turns around to put the paper back up in its spot inside the door. “Hey,” he says, glancing over his shoulder. “What time is it?”

Tsukishima is - not _annoyed,_ definitely not. He’s just confused. He’s pretty sure it’s the third time Kuroo has asked him.

“Look, I’m not usually a _time for you to get a watch_ person, but you should consider investing,” Tsukishima says, as he nevertheless checks his phone. “It’s eleven forty-nine.”

“Thanks,” Kuroo says, ignoring the first sentence entirely. Tsukishima glances over the grid of papers one more time, the little square hole by the bottom filled again. Kuroo looks at him. “By the way, where’s your little buddy?”

“Yamaguchi?” Tsukishima looks away from _At the touch of love, everyone becomes a poet._ It’s attributed to Plato. He wonders what made Kuroo decide to keep it. “Downstairs, probably. There’s this girl he’s trying to get with. I’m not getting involved.”

“Wise,” Kuroo remarks. “Well, if you do decide you wanna go back d -”

“I definitely don’t."

Kuroo doesn’t look offended. Just mildly surprised. He holds the sweatshirt out at arm’s length.

“Fine,” he says as Tsukishima takes it. “So you’re just gonna sit outside by yourself?”

Now, Tsukishima _knows_ it’d be stupid if he said that those last two words deflated him a bit. Stupid, if he’d thought Kuroo might abandon his own New Year’s party to stand out in the cold with Tsukishima’s boring ass and do… what, exactly?

Nothing. That’s what.

“Apparently.”

“I’ll keep you company,” Kuroo offers. “For a bit. Since your friend’s busy being a ladykiller and all.”

“You don’t have to pity me,” Tsukishima says shortly. He slips his arms into the hoodie, leaving it unzipped. It’s slightly oversized. Comfortable.

“It’s not pity if I want to,” Kuroo says, shrugging casually as he reaches into the closet and pulls out a light jacket. Apparently Tsukishima doesn’t have a choice in the matter.

Not that he would have been opposed. He’s just confused. He can’t imagine why a person like Kuroo - somebody who lives in the upperclassman ghetto with his upperclassman friends and throws New Year’s parties and surely has a thousand better things to do - would want to sit alone in the cold with some antisocial freshman he knows from a shitty class. It just doesn’t make sense.

A lot of things about Kuroo don’t make sense.

Tsukishima is about to ask _why -_ why Kuroo is being so nice to him, why he’s insisting that it’s because he actually _wants_ to. But Kuroo speaks first.

“Hey,” he says, and when Tsukishima looks up, Kuroo is grinning at him. “Can I show you something?”

“Every time in the history of the world that I’ve said yes to that question, I’ve deeply regretted it,” Tsukishima answers.

“But…?” Kuroo goads him, with that presumptive confidence that Tsukishima half-admires, half-despises.

He sighs.

 _“But,_ I have a feeling that saying no will make my life extremely difficult.”

“You’re a quick learner, Tsukki,” Kuroo says. “Come here.”

Tsukishima takes a step to follow him as he crosses the small room, but when Kuroo climbs up onto the bed under the window - in one fluid motion, strangely graceful - Tsukishima stays rooted to his spot by the door. He can feel his heartbeat speed up, can hear his pulse in his ears, because Kuroo is kneeling on the bed, and he’s looking back over his shoulder with that calm, expectant look, and the moon’s outside the window behind him, and _what -_

“Don’t get any ideas,” Kuroo snickers, eyes darting over Tsukishima’s face. He leans down, fingers hooked under the bottom of the window, and shoves it up like it weighs nothing. “We’re going outside.”

A combination of relief and embarrassment and _definitely not disappointment_ floods through Tsukishima’s chest, and he wants to fling some snarky comeback, but he can’t think of one. So he just follows Kuroo wordlessly to the bed, watching him slip out the window onto the low roof outside.

When Tsukishima climbs up after him, the mattress creaks slightly underneath his weight; the bed is unmade, with dark sheets and an outright unnecessary number of pillows. He crawls carefully over it, attempting to maneuver his way out the window without dragging his feet.

“Why so careful?” Kuroo asks, watching him intently.

“I’m wearing shoes,” he says.

“Nastier things than your shoes have touched that bed, Tsukki,” Kuroo says, grinning at the face that the comment elicits from Tsukishima.

“Obviously,” he says, “if you sleep in it every night.”

“You’re so mean to me,” Kuroo says, and the wording doesn’t slip past Tsukishima - the implication of something established and familiar. He doesn’t have time to dwell on it very long before Kuroo continues, “How’d you know that one was mine, anyway?”

Tsukishima falters. It’s true; Kuroo had never explicitly mentioned it. But it’d been obvious, really - he’d recognized the laptop tossed on one of the pillows, and he’s certain he’s seen Kuroo wearing the hoodie hanging from the bedpost.

He wonders if those are weird things to notice. Second-guesses it. Maybe third-guesses.

“Inference,” he says vaguely, and Kuroo seems satisfied.

Tsukishima slips the rest of the way out the window; it’s not particularly difficult, with his narrower frame, but he’d watched Kuroo (he doesn’t want to admit how _closely_ he’d watched Kuroo, in fact), and although he looked like he’d done this a thousand times, he’d still struggled a bit to fit his broader shoulders through. Something about the thought is inexplicably attractive.

So Tsukishima pushes it down. Deeply.

Once he’s outside, he glances around. Rather than looking out over the backyard like the balcony, the roof is at the side of the house, and all that it faces is the nearly identical one next door. They’re at floor-level with the second story of Kuroo’s, so they must be sitting right above somewhere downstairs. The living room, Tsukishima figures, with his vague knowledge of the layout. He also guesses there’s a window or two open, faintly aware of muffled music and indistinguishable voices drifting out into the air.

He sits down, and immediately Kuroo drops beside him, legs crossed. Tsukishima looks at him. Kuroo’s tanned skin is washed pale under the moon, and Tsukishima doesn’t want to think about how ghostly he must look in comparison.

He realizes he’s staring when Kuroo turns, a vague sort of surprise flickering in his eyes as they meet Tsukishima’s.

In justification, he asks, “Why not just go back out to the balcony?”

“This is better,” Kuroo says, sounding more like a fact than an opinion. “Besides, other people go out there sometimes. My roommates and stuff.”

“Oh.” Tsukishima turns to him. “Do you have a problem with that?”

“Guess not,” Kuroo says. “I just… I don’t know. Thought you might.”

“Oh,” Tsukishima says again. He pauses briefly before tacking on, “Thanks.”

“No problem,” Kuroo says. He uncrosses his legs, instead stretching them out in front of him and leaning back on his hands. There’s a short silence before he looks at Tsukishima and says, “Sorry you got dragged here against your will.”

“What?” Tsukishima frowns. He glances at the window. “It’s not like you -”

“I meant to the party."

“Hm,” Tsukishima says. “It’s fine. It doesn’t… totally suck. I guess.” He shrugs. “Could be worse.”

“Your kindness moves me deeply, Tsukki."

“Sure,” Tsukishima mutters. Kuroo doesn’t respond, at first.

“Hey,” he says after a moment, his voice suddenly quiet. He looks at Tsukishima - not directly. Just out of the corner of his eye. “What time is it?”

“You’ve asked me that, like, four times tonight,” Tsukishima says, but once again, he's more irritated than confused. He checks his phone. “Eleven fifty-eight.”

“Two more minutes,” Kuroo says. He sounds nervous, like they’re waiting for the rapture or something. Tsukishima doesn’t get it.

“One, now,” Tsukishima offers, watching the minute change on his screen.

“Great,” Kuroo says quietly. “Thanks.”

“Sure.”

It’s silent, but only for a few seconds.

“Hey,” Kuroo says, sudden yet somehow hesitant. It’s weird. “Remember earlier, when I said you can’t go to sleep before midnight?”

“Yeah,” Tsukishima says. When he turns, Kuroo is already looking at him.

“It wasn’t just because of the year changing,” he says. “You were right. It still happens, even if you’re asleep for it.”

Tsukishima frowns. He’s not sure where this is going, and it’s making him vaguely anxious.

“Why, then?”

Kuroo looks like he’s about to answer, but he’s cut off by a loud scream of _“ten”_ erupting from the downstairs window, an overwhelming number of voices in perfect synchronicity.

But it’s the _nine_ that makes Tsukishima realize what it is.

The New Year’s countdown.

Kuroo takes in a deep breath. He hasn’t said anything, and Tsukishima wants to ask him again, but there’s an _eight._

Kuroo is staring at the shingles of the roof now. He looks like he wants to throw up.

_Seven._

“Because if you aren’t awake--” he finally says, and he visibly winces as he’s cut off by a loud _six._

And then, Kuroo looks up, and the expression on his face makes Tsukishima’s heart stall. It’s clear resolve plastered over abject terror.

_Five._

“...then you can’t get a New Year’s kiss,” Kuroo finishes, almost mumbling. Like he thinks maybe Tsukishima wouldn’t hear it unless he wanted to.

_Four._

“Tsukki,” Kuroo breathes. It’s a confession, and a question, and a preemptive apology, all at once, as if he’s letting Tsukishima choose which one he’d like it to be.

_Three._

And he knows. Tsukishima _knows._

_Two._

Kuroo’s lips are parted, like he’s about to say something. _I’m sorry. Just forget I said anything._

_One._

_Apology_ was the wrong answer.

There's loud cheering from downstairs. Screaming, laughing. Background noise.

And Tsukishima kisses him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: this entire thing was born when i was in my English professor's office and saw one of those stupid quote calendars sitting on her desk. Wonder what she'd think of this...?? Lol.
> 
> Fun fact #2: I started writing this ages ago, and arbitrarily chose November twenty-fifth as the date on said calendar. Randomly decided to revisit it and publish it on a whim today of all days. Is that good luck or something? Maybe.
> 
> Also, chapter title comes from [this song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7TSupmHKD0)!

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! x


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